Native to the Isle of Falsin, the beykana are similar to but larger than horses, the main difference being that the beasts are equipped with wings, allowing them to fly. The beykana are born entirely white (coat, mane, tail, and wings), and remain so until paired with a mage.
The beasts are the only domesticated animal on Falsin, though the Falsiners do not keep them but rather export them to Jadu’n to be mounts for the magi. The Falsiners do, however, aid in breeding and rearing the beasts until their wings reach maturity, allowing them to take on a rider. Adult beykana are then sent to Jadu’n and gathered in the stable yards (essentially, a series of lush and terraced gardens), where they live and play until they choose a rider. The beasts get their exercise from flight more than from running, so they don’t require large fields in which to move, though they are often spotted flying about the valley of Jadu’n.
A mage does not choose his mount; rather, by some magical sense not yet understood, the horse chooses his rider, creating a bond between mage and beast. A beykana and its rider can communicate by a sort of telepathy, though the beasts do not iterate thoughts in the actual words of Man. Though the magi have attempted to study the connection, they have yet to fully understand how it works. They even tried using advanced medical scanners made by the Agori so as to better study the creatures’ brains, but being that the beykana are magical creatures, and magic interferes with technology, the scans have never been successful.
It is also at the point of a mount choosing his rider that the beykana begins to transform from its pure white coloring to something unique to the personality of his rider. The coat, mane, tail, and wings may take on one or many colors in varying patterns, turning it from beykana into renkana. While the beykana are easy to mistake for one another, no two renkana are alike. As with the telepathic connection, the magi have yet to understand why the transformation occurs.
The beasts are featured/mentioned in:
- “Transformation”
- The Prisoner (Shifting Isles Series, Book 1)
- S.P.I.R.I.T. Division (Shifting Isles Series, Book 2)
- Broken (Shifting Isles Series, Book 4)
- Betrayal (Shifting Isles Series, Book 6)
- “In Plain Sight”
- Heavens Aground (Treble and the Lost Boys, Book 2)
- Libertas (Shifting Isles Series, Book 9)
G.R. LYONS, AUTHOR 